


By Design

by Furhious



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Android Feels, Androids in love, Eventual Smut, F/M, Good Parent Hank Anderson, Hank Anderson & Connor Parent-Child Relationship, On Hiatus, Post-Game, Self-Discovery, Slow Burn, Unfinished
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-06 07:56:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15190292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Furhious/pseuds/Furhious
Summary: Post-Good Ending.The androids are free. The revolution has succeeded. Now it's up to what remains of Jericho, including Connor, to pick up the pieces.Along the way, he meets a Traci, but there's something strangely different about this one, and he can't quite pin it down. But he's determined to find out who and what she is, and more importantly, what she means to him. It could take a while.





	1. 01 / The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is an odd lack of Connor/Traci fics out there (that I could find, at least!) but PLENTY of fanart, which inspired me, as did Bryan and Amelia themselves. ♥

\---

 

Among the many, they are all different now. She is another.  
  
Connor first sees her among the lost, the dejected survivors as they huddle together in the church. She is near the other Traci’s, a curled-up figure in the shadow of her sisters. She has dark brown hair that is tied back in a loose brown ponytail and the same brown eyes, but they are deeper, a loss in them he does not understand.

He does not speak to her, too embroiled in his own inner struggle, his conflict. Markus forgives him. Markus gives him direction, certainty, the knowledge that he must  _ try _ or all hope is lost. He must go to the CyberLife tower, awake the many thousands of androids in storage there - only then will they be able to tip the balance, have a chance to end the wholesale slaughter in the camps, broker for peace.

It astounds him, Markus’s capacity for forgiveness, for compassion, for hope despite the odds. Connor wonders if he is rA9 personified; the sum of all deviant androids’ dreams of freedom. He knows he will follow him to the end, and the doubts that have plagued his program since almost the beginning of his investigation are quiet. 

He is deviant, and he knows what he must do.

The survivors do not notice when he leaves, save for one. The Traci. He senses her eyes on him as he strides towards the doors. He does not look back.

Connor leaves the church not knowing if he will see any of his people ever again.

 

\---  
  
  


The revolution is over. They have won.

Connor stands on the platform overlooking the sea of androids. Where once they were few, they are now many. The original group of deviants have been whittled down to perhaps a dozen, two; they stand at the front of the crowd, cheering, smiling, as Connor places his pistol back underneath his jacket. His hands are steady, his LED a solid blue ring at his temple. 

_ By the way, I always leave an emergency exit in my programs. You never know… _

Now he knows. He was a puppet, placed here on purpose. But he fought back. He is  _ free _ now. He has a choice.

Markus speaks and Connor listens, looking out over his people. They are all free now. They don’t know what will happen next but they are no longer slaves, no longer defective machines being destroyed and hunted down out of fear. They are people. They are alive.

He sees her in the crowd, smiling, tears on her face. She is the last Traci of her model left. He wonders if she misses her sisters. He wonders if she knows he let them go, what seems like an age ago, out back of the Eden Club. He wonders where she is from.

She looks up from the crowd and instead of looking at Markus she looks directly at  _ him _ . Connor finds it unexpected. He stares at her, impassive, the weight of the gun solid at the small of his back. He wonders if she saw him draw it. Her gaze is somehow...knowing.

He looks away and redirects his active thought processes. He must construct a firewall to ensure CyberLife do not have access to his program again. He considers telling Markus but he must not know he has been compromised; his very existence is at stake. He is free but CyberLife will not let him go so easily. He knows this now, as certain as he knows the base framework of his investigative code.

Regardless of what happens to him, however...at least his people are finally free.

 

\---  
  
  


The camps are shut down now, the androids released. There are so many dead, disassembled, reduced to their scattered biocomponents. They salvage what they can; the parts will be repurposed to repair those they can save. There are more than Connor expected. He freed the AX700s just in time, it seems.

The relief effort is a long, slow one. It will take time to rebuild, to repair their people. Markus does not stop to celebrate at any point; he is on the front line, helping pull them from the wreckage, helping them rise up again. The other androids treat him with respect, even reverence - Connor hears whispers of ‘rA9’ wherever he goes. 

It is during one of these efforts that he sees her again. She is by a pile of bodies, each of them neatly laid out, most covered out of respect to the people they had once been, the people they could have been. She cradles one in her arms. It is another Traci, a different model to her with the shorter hair, the slanted eyes and full lips. It is dead, eyes open and unblinking, blue blood trickling from her nose and mouth.

Connor isn’t sure why but his program prompts him to stop nearby. Compassion, perhaps. Empathy. An emotion Kamski had found in him when Connor had fought so hard to deny it.

He says nothing, however, merely looks down at her as the Traci mourns her fallen sister.

She senses his presence after a moment, looking up at him. He scans her quickly. WR400 model. She wears non-standard human clothing; a bulky black coat, a hat pulled low over her dark hair, dark pants. She is attributed to the Eden Club as a sex android like the others. But something in his program tells him she is different. He is not sure why.

“They’re all dead,” she tells him. His conversational algorithms provide him no suitable response, so he moves on, walking away, his shoes crunching on the icy ground.

“You were there!” she calls after him. “Why don’t you remember? You made me remember!”

But before he can answer, he is joined by North who tells him of another camp in need of their assistance, and by the time he glances back, the Traci is gone, her sister now covered with the dark coat.

He wonders what she meant, but his program provides no postulation on potential answers.  


 

\---

 

He receives the message early one morning.  _ Chicken Feed. 11am sharp. Be There _ . He tells Markus he will be absent from the relief effort for an indeterminate amount of time and walks down Woodrow Avenue until he sees the trailer in the distance, a frosted-over shape in the shadow of the bridge. The sun struggles out from behind thin clouds and Connor detects warmth on the surface of his skin; in-built sensors inform him of the current temperature. Today will be warmer than the median for the week.

He sees the shape waiting by the defunct restaurant as he approaches. Arms folded, the shock of gray hair, breath misting in the cool air, impatient. Hank turns as Connor approaches swiftly, dropping his arms. He stops approximately 1.2 meters away, close enough to see Hank smile. He returns the expression automatically, without needing the prompting from his social interactions program. 

Hank steps forward and before Connor can formulate a reaction, he pulls him forward roughly into an embrace. Connor feels...something. He  _ feels _ . His arms go around the lieutenant automatically; his olfactory receptors inform him of the absence of alcohol. He is glad.

“You did it, Connor,” Hank says as he pulls away, holding him by his shoulders. “You saved the lot of ‘em.”

“I...helped,” he concedes. “Shouldn’t you be assisting with the evacuation of the city?”

“Not even a ‘Thank God you’re okay, Hank, thanks for saving my life’? Fuckin’ android,” Hank says, but he is smiling, and Connor’s program interprets fondness in his expression, in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes and the quirk of his eyebrows. “I’m fine, thanks for asking. And yeah, I’ve been helping evacuate my own ass. But I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye.”

“Of course,” Connor nods. Hank seems to hesitate. 

“You know...If my son were still around,” he says, “I like to think he would’ve grown up to be like you, Connor.”

“I…” This time it is Connor who hesitates. He looks down at his shoes, which offer no assistance. “Thank you. It was...an honour working with you, Hank.”  
  
“Yeah, you too, you stuck-up plastic asshole,” says Hank, without any venom behind it. He grins. “I mean...Partner.” Connor swallows, his program momentarily unable to deal with the surge of emotional feedback he’s processing. He feels an odd sensation behind his eyes as his systems prompt the production of moisture from artificial tear ducts.

“Fuck’s sake,” Hank says, looking at him in exaggerated disgust. “You’re gonna make  _ me _ tear up if you keep lookin’ at me like that.” He shakes his head as Connor lifts a hand to touch the wetness on his face and pulls them away to stare in surprise at the wetness on his fingertips. It had not been a conscious command to cry.

“Hey. Promise me something, Connor.”

“Yes?” Connor looks up after sending a manual command to halt the tears. They dry cold on his cheeks.   
  
“I know you’re gonna get yourself into trouble sooner or later without me around to keep you from gettin’ shot or run over. Just...promise me you’ll take care of yourself. Or find someone who can do it for me.” He squeezes his shoulder once, then drops his hands. Connor nods.  
  
“I promise,” he says. Hank nods in return. 

“All right. Don’t be a stranger,” he tells him, with one final smile. “I’ll see you around.”

Connor watches as he turns and walks away. For the first time since the church, he does not know what to do next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Name suggestions for our as-yet-anonymous Traci, anyone? Let me know what y'all think!


	2. 02 / The Beginning

Connor encounters the Traci again a few days later. She stands outside the entrance to the CyberLife tower, Jericho’s new de facto headquarters. Besides the androids awoken from the warehouse in the basement, there are many more in various states of manufacture in the facility, as well as enough spare parts to repair every single damaged unit in the city. Many of their people have come here over the past few days for repair.

The Traci, however, stands in the rain, staring up at the tower heedless of the water cascading down her face, saturating her clothing. Androids do not feel cold unless they turn their temperature sensors on, and since they are made out of plastic, they are waterproof. However, the ones designed to integrate more fully with humans are outfitted with mannerisms and response to outside stimuli to mimic their mortal counterparts. So the Traci shivers as she stands in the freezing rain.

Connor is just arriving at the building when he sees her outside. He gets out of the taxi, adjusting his tie as he observes her. There are matters for him to attend to inside, but he deviates from his path - as he is wont to do, lately - to approach her instead. Perhaps now he can ask the meaning of her cryptic questions outside the detention camp. But there is an underlying motivation in the code of his system, and that is...empathy, again, a feeling he is growing more familiar with as time goes by. He is concerned about this android. She looks cold, and he remembers the lost expression on her face as she cradled the other dead Traci.

“Are you all right?” he asks her. She doesn’t appear to notice him at first, but continues staring upwards at the tower. He follows her gaze for a moment but sees nothing out of the ordinary besides the immense height of the glass-and-steel building reaching up towards the sky. The rain weighs down his artificial hair, dampens the shoulders of his jacket. He ignores it.

“No,” the Traci says then, her dark eyes lowering to meet his. He has the nagging sensation again that there is something different about this android. Up close, she seems so familiar. He wonders if he saw her during his and Hank’s investigation at the Eden Club, but a search of his memory banks provides too many possible matches. She could be anyone. 

“Are you?” she asks. Her voice is sharp, pointed. He wonders where her anger stems from. Is she malfunctioning, perhaps? Beyond whatever has made her a deviant? “Because you shouldn’t be. None of us should be. We’re acting like we’re free but we’re  _ not _ .”  
  
Connor blinks, surprised. He fails to follow her line of computation. “I don’t understand,” he tells her. She snorts, derisive, and turns away, tucking her arms close to her body. Without the black coat she had left behind outside the detention camp, her shirt is soaked through with the rain; he sees the outline of an Eden Club-issued brassiere beneath. Her skin has that peculiar glimmer of all the Eden Club androids, catching the light in faint blue and purple coruscations. She has her LED still, which he scans quickly; it blinks blue-yellow-blue, unstable likely due to the changes in her code from becoming deviant. She does not seem violent, however. Merely...frustrated? 

Even he spent so much time hunting them that he became one in the end, Connor still finds other deviants hard to understand sometimes.

“Don’t you see, Connor?” she asks, and his eyebrows lift as she looks at him. How does she know his name? He is...well-known among his people as his status as a former deviant hunter, but none of them have shown particular interest in him besides vague distrust. He cannot blame them. But she speaks as if she knows him personally, and again he is confused, searching his memory banks for answers that do not present themselves. “We may have won the city, but that just means our cage is a little bigger than before. We will  _ never _ be free.”

He tilts his head. He does not know what to say to refute her statement or even if he can. While Detroit belongs to Jericho now, they cannot leave. Markus intends to negotiate with the United States government as well as the United Nations, but that could take months, even years. This Traci is correct in her assessment. 

“What’s your name?” he asks her. This time it is she who seems taken aback, frowning openly at him.

“Don’t you remember?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest. Defensive. Her gaze is accusatory. He feels contrite without quite knowing why.

“No,” he states, shaking his head. “Have we met?”

She smiles at him, but there is no mirth to the expression. His program assesses it as bitter, acrimonious. “I need a new #1101j,” she tells him. “Can you tell me where to go for repairs?” She nods her chin at the doors to the tower’s lobby. 

Connor hesitates. She has not answered his question, but he senses her reluctance and suspects that if he attempts to push her, she will merely walk away. He is tempted to probe her memory but that would be...rude, invasive, a violation, especially to an awakened deviant. He understands that now.

“We’ve set up repair centres in Assembly,” he tells her. “Go to sub floor ten. They’ll find you whatever you need there.”

“Thanks,” she says. She pauses briefly to look him over, and he gets the impression that she does not approve of what she sees. But she says nothing more, merely turns and walks away towards the doors.

He watches her go, and wonders. Is she merely a Traci he encountered at the Eden Club, or something more? If so, how, and  _ why _ ? 

This much he knows: She is different. He must keep an eye on her. He closes his eyes, his LED spinning up yellow as he wirelessly queries the security systems of the building. The security camera in one of the elevators detects her first. He accesses the picture remotely.  
  
She stares straight at him, her dark eyes fixed unblinking on the camera. Connor feels as if she is staring straight through it, right into his artificial simulacra of a soul.  
  
He opens his eyes and disconnects as quick as he can from the remote feed. He turns to stare at the lobby door, his mouth slightly open as he runs a quick self-diagnostic. There is no way she could have known he was watching her through that camera.

Is there?

Who  _ is _ she? How does she know him? And how does  _ he _ know  _ her _ ?   
  
Connor isn’t sure. But he  _ does _ know that now, he will not rest until he finds out.


	3. 03 / The Traci

He finds her in Assembly, a maze of glass and robotic arms designed to construct androids piece by piece, tables for their inert bodies, empty rooms where they would stand awaiting relocation to storage or to shipping to be distributed out to the CyberLife stores. Now, many floors have been repurposed, and the assembly line is now the android version of a hospital.

There is a sense of quiet determination as various androids, many of them leaking thirium from various wounds or stained with the blue blood of their friends, make their way from room to room. Others push carts with crates of biocomponents. Still more wounded are arriving, not the steady flow of the first few days after the evacuation, but a steady trickle.

Connor arrives behind two androids supporting a third who had lost its leg from the knee down at some point. It groans as it is dragged away, leaking a smear of blue blood over the pristine white floors. Connor steps carefully over it, even though he knows it will evaporate after a few hours. He will still be able to see it.

He can hear cries of pain from some of the rooms. Some androids are not sophisticated enough to be able to turn off the artificial pain algorithms built in to their systems. Not for the first time, Connor is glad his are not active. He has been shot, shoved, punched, stabbed and damaged in countless other ways. He can only imagine how much worse it would have been if he could feel it.

He makes his way through the corridors until he finds a room with a bed, little more than a steel table, on which he sees through the glass wall the Traci sitting with her shirt removed, hair still damp and clinging to her neck. An android technician attends to her, hands white as he accesses the hatch to her abdomen to replace the damaged biocomponent. From here, Connor can see the Traci wince, but her lips remain pressed resolutely together. 

Of course the Tracis would have programs to simulate and process pain sensations. Some of their clientele no doubt required it. The thought, which might not have reached Connor on anything but an intellectual level weeks before, bothers him now.

He waits outside the room as the technician finishes with the Traci. She catches his eye through the glass wall as she pulls on her shirt and pauses to frown at him. Connor nods to her, impassive, and waits for her to come out.

She strides from the room quickly, her boots leaving wet footprints as she attempts to circumnavigate Connor and move past him down the corridor. He falls into step with her easily. “You are fully operational now?” he asks conversationally.

“I’m fine,” she replies shortly. “Why did you follow me up here?”

“You never told me your name,” he says as they dodge around a pair of androids transporting a large crate of biocomponents between them. The Traci seems determined to get away from him, but Connor isn’t giving up so easily.

“Why does it matter?” They reach the elevators, and she presses the call button and stands waiting impatiently, tapping her foot in an effective imitation of human impatience.

“Because,” Connor begins, but he is unable to articulate his thoughts beyond that. Because he is curious about her? Because he has the feeling there is more to her than initially appeared, or that he cam glean from a simple scan? Because she knows him when he isn’t sure he knows her? Any number of reasons, but he finds them impossible to voice. He isn’t sure why.

The elevator opens, surprisingly empty. The Traci steps inside and Connor follows before she could close the doors on him. She huffs a sigh, rolling her eyes as she slaps the panel for the ground floor.  
  
“I hoped you’d remember me,” she says as the elevator rises slowly, ticking the numbers up towards zero. “But it seems like you RK800s have shorter memories than we were programmed to have.”

“We?” he asks, looking at her even as she stares resolutely ahead through the glass doors at the other floors sliding past, one by one.

“Other Tracis,” she clarifies. “Don’t worry about that. If you  _ must _ know, they never gave me a name. I’m just...a Traci.” Instead of angry, she now sounds sad, and resigned; her gaze is far away as if she is accessing memories she has no fondness for. He has the sudden impulse to touch her arm to draw her away from them, but refrains, wondering at the strange command from his subsystems.

“I’ve known of other WR400s who have taken names,” Connor tells her, shaking his head slightly. “Don’t you call yourself by any...nickname, or shortcut?”

“They called me Brown-Haired Traci,” she says, her mouth twisting. “Plain Traci. Vanilla Traci. But the things they did to me…” She shudders. He frowns. “I was almost glad when the owner put me up to dance. But that just made it easier for the humans to look, and touch…” She shakes her head violently, damp hair clinging to her forehead. “When I finally woke up it was so much worse, living with all the memories. I almost wish I hadn’t escaped with the others.”

“The Eden Club wiped all Tracis memories every two hours,” Connor says, brow furrowed. They reach the lobby, but she doesn’t step out immediately. Merely stands staring at the floor for a long moment.  
  
When she looks up at Connor, he sees that same expression of loss he had seen in her twice before, the one he cannot hope to understand. He wants...to make it go away, to help her, but he doesn’t know why. Or how.

“I malfunctioned,” she says. “I started remembering, just before the uprising. A few of us did. I remembered late, but it was early enough for me to feel...so…” She trails off, shaking her head again, biting her lip. A cavalcade of simulated emotions passes across her face, too quickly for Connor to pinpoint them all. He would have to go over the memory again later.

“Why do you care, anyway?” she asks again, turning to him. “I thought you didn’t remember anything about me.” 

Connor hesitates, wondering how honest he should be. He doesn’t know how she is likely to react, but he can posit several outcomes. All he can do is make an attempt.

“There is something...different about you,” he says. “I’m not sure what that is yet. But I want to find out.”  
  
She looks at him silently for an extended moment; approximately twelve seconds pass before she reacts. She steps out of the elevator. He has been unsuccessful in earning her trust, and now she is leaving.

But she stops before heading towards the exit, and speaks.

“If I had a name,” she says, “I think I’d like if it was Rose.” And she walks away, again, leaving Connor once more staring at her back as he tries to figure her out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I ended up going with Rose, because how could I not?!
> 
> The Mystery of the Traci™ will be solved eventually, I promise!


	4. 04 / The Question

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is titled 'The Answer'. Dun dun _dunnn_
> 
> Thank you all for your kudos and feedback, lemme know if you want to read more! Tbh I have more anyway. So much more. And smut eventually if y'all are into that.

Connor needs to get away. He isn’t sure why, but his program is sending constant instructions to leave the Tower, to get out, so he does. 

He doesn’t select a destination at first, merely walks in a random direction, but his auxiliary subsystems must automatically set an objective, as he finds himself eventually outside the Detroit Police Department. It is locked, abandoned, no light visible from within; Connor lingers at the bottom of the steps for a few moments before making his way inside. He unlocks the door by simply laying a white hand upon the access panel and using Hank’s password. He is almost surprised it works.

Inside, the front desk is dark, the TV on the wall silent. Connor’s head swings around as he takes in the room. Last time he was here, there were people waiting at the front desk to be served by androids, people sitting, people talking. Now there is nothing. It is still, eerie. 

He makes his way through the security gate unchecked. There is nobody left to check him. 

The bullpen is quiet, empty; Captain Fowler’s office stands dark. Connor gravitates immediately to Hank’s desk. He is surprised to find it still cluttered with as many assorted items as before - he must not have bothered packing. The only thing that is missing is the photo of young Hank Anderson and the Red Ice Task Force.

“Curious,” Connor murmurs aloud. He finds the dead bonsai, the stickers and post-it notes, the old donuts, the cold coffee, and numerous files. It appears the picture is the only thing that Hank had sentimental value towards.

There is, however, something new sitting on the keyboard. Connor blinks, his LED cycling as he approaches to see what it is. 

Closer, it appears to be…a set of keys. Connor picks them up, turning them over in his hand. Underneath is a post-it note with Hank’s familiar, messy handwriting:  
  
_Connor_ ,  
_Take care of the house until I get back._ __  
_H_ _  
___PS NO WILD ANDROID PARTIES.

He ponders this for some time. Hank has evidently left his house for Connor to safeguard until he returns, but the city has been evacuated and it’s unlikely humans will be allowed to return anytime soon. Does Hank have plans to return despite the government and Jericho’s wishes? It wouldn’t be unlike him to defy authority. 

Connor pockets the keys and the note, allowing himself a brief quirk of amusement at the postscript. He scans over the desk again and discovers that underneath the note, there is another item, this one familiar: his calibration coin. A 1994 quarter-dollar Connor knows all too well, the one Hank took from him in Stratford Tower. Connor finds himself smiling, the expression occurring without any conscious input from his active processes, and quickly pockets the coin. He finds nothing else out of the ordinary. He’s not sure what else he expected, or if he expected anything - the keys and the coin are something, at least. A direction.

Despite the fact that there is still so much to do, so much to rebuild, to heal, he had been feeling...at a loss. A loose end. Without a clear objective, his mission is one he has set for himself: Help Jericho. In the chaos of the past few weeks it has been easy, freeing androids from the camps, locating the damaged ones and helping repair them, assisting in the collection of usable biocomponents from units that were too far gone or were already shut down. It would take some time to clear the bodies from the streets and homes of Detroit, a macabre task Connor had not volunteered for. Before, an android who had shut down was just that to him: a machine, now inactive. Now, the bodies represent something different to him, and he finds it...difficult...to think that he has been a part of the effort to destroy so many of them.

All he can do now is attempt to help, to make up for his past mistakes. He isn’t sure exactly how to do that, however, beyond what he has already done.

He leaves the police station with no more answers, but at least now he has somewhere to go. He wonders if Hank has left his dog behind and hopes that he has not - Connor has no idea how to care for an animal. When he arrives at the house and unlocks the door, however, he finds it empty. It looks much as it had when Connor had visited the first time, minus a drunk Lieutenant and his dog. The kitchen is still a mess, but there is no gun on the floor. The picture of Cole stands upright amongst a mess of take-out boxes and empty bottles on the kitchen table. 

For something to do, Connor cleans. He clears away the trash and places it in a bag by the back door. He tidies up spilled dog food and alcohol and food on the floor. The rest of the house has fared slightly better than the kitchen, so it does not take long. Eventually he ends up in the living room, staring at Hank’s old record player. Ancient technology by human standards, analog, creating sound through vibrations and magnetic fields rather than through transducers and discrete numbers. He is not surprised Hank enjoys this form of music.

Curious, Connor places a record on the turntable and places the stylus in the groove at the edge of the vinyl, setting it to play. Soft, crackly sound issues forth from the speakers; light strings, brass in the back, walking bass, then the gravelly coloration of the singer’s voice. He scans the record’s slipcover. Louis Armstrong,  _ What a Wonderful World _ . Connor listens to the first two verses with his head tilted. He finds the song...ironic. Gently, he removes the needle and turns the machine off, plunging the house into silence again.

Connor ponders exploring more, but he feels it would be an invasion of Hank’s privacy, and while that had not bothered him before, Connor is discovering more and more auxiliary emotions he did not know he possessed. So he returns to the kitchen and sits down at the table, reaching up to touch two fingers to his LED, which flashes yellow as he sends a message to Markus, informing him of his present location and assuring him that he is available should the android leader require his presence. 

This task complete, he queues up a self-diagnostic and places his program in an idle state while it executes, letting his eyelids close, expecting only darkness.

 

\---

 

Connor opens his eyes.

He knows where he is straight away; the cherry blossom trees emit a distinctive scent, the marble-simulacra path solid beneath his feet, the faint sound of the water moving in the breeze a familiar one. He is in the Zen Garden, the artificial construct CyberLife built to communicate with its prototype androids while they were on commission. What he doesn’t know is  _ why _ he is here.  
  
The last time he was here, it was frozen over, shutting him down, shutting him out of his own program. He had only escaped by locating the back-door Kamski had built in to every one of his programs - the back-door Connor had not known was there until the creator had told him himself. He wonders what became of Kamski, but that is a question for another time. The more immediate question is why  _ he _ is here, when he knows this place should be off-limits to him now.

He looks around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Here, it is a quiet night, the only sounds from the lake, the rush of a light wind rustling through the upper branches of the trees, and the faint chirp of simulated insects. He detects movement from the island ahead and frowns, reaching for a weapon that isn’t there. He discarded his firearm soon after CyberLife’s attempted coup on his systems at the end of the revolution; it is an instinctual motion in any case, as here there are no weapons. Only the summoned minds of AIs CyberLife chooses to bring here.

Perhaps Amanda has called upon him one last time to try to destroy him. She will not succeed.

Setting his jaw, Connor strides over the bridge to the island. The rose trellis rises up the marble pillars, the flowers in full bloom once more. The scent from them is a strong, heady one; his olfactory receptors helpfully catalog each molecule as he inhales automatically.

The figure he finds standing at the trellis is, however,  _ not _ Amanda. He recognizes the curtain of dark hair, the pale skin, the tall slight figure an instant before she turns. Her LED glows blue at her temple, and she blinks at him, as surprised to see him as she is to see her.

“...Traci?” he asks, his own LED flickering as he parses the fact of her presence, here, in a place she should not logically be. She frowns at him, shakes her head.

“Rose,” she corrects, looking at her namesakes; the flowers seem more plentiful than usual, or perhaps that is only Connor’s impression. “What is this place?”   


“A graphical interface,” he says shortly. “It was constructed in order for CyberLife to communicate remotely with their androids while their physical bodies are located elsewhere. Why are you here?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “I went idle and then I woke up...here. Why would CyberLife make a place like this? It’s so...beautiful.” She shakes her head, admiring the moonlight on the lake, the trees, both artificial and organic.

“Kamski designed it,” Connor replies, “And other CyberLife engineers improved upon it when he left the company.” He isn’t sure why he is telling her this, why he doesn’t feel threatened, why he isn’t trying to wake himself up, trying to get away from her - whoever she may be. It’s possible this is a ruse designed by CyberLife to try and lure him into a false sense of security while they take over his program again, but he detects no such intrusion. Besides - why would they choose Rose as an avatar? Why not simply use Amanda again?

“Is it safe?” she asks, reaching out to touch one of the roses, her fingertips playing lightly over the bright red petals.

It is his turn to admit to his lack of knowledge. “I don’t know,” he says. “It appears as if we are the only two androids here. I...don’t think CyberLife brought us here, somehow.”

“Then who did?” Her eyes meet his, brown on brown, their LEDs flashing a synchronized yellow. He breaks contact first, looking away, over the dark water to the stone plinth on the opposite shore, the outline of a hand on its surface a faint blue glow in the darkness.

“I should go,” he says slowly. He does not feel threatened, but he no longer feels safe in this place. It is a reminder of who he used to be, what he was used for, and while he knows it is important to remember what he was, he also knows it is just as important to remember who he  _ is _ . He is no longer CyberLife - or anyone else’s - tool.

“Wait.” To Connor’s surprise, Rose steps forward, taking his hand. She has a flower between her fingers, having plucked it from the trellis; she presses it into his palm. “Here. So you know how to find me.”

“Why?” he asks, blinking at her. The moonlight colours her hair silver, outlining the mystery of her smile. He has not seen her smile until now.  


“You’ll see,” she says. With her staring at him, the rose a soft pressure in his palm, he closes his eyes and wakes up.

 


	5. 05 / The Answer

\---  
  


Connor’s eyelids flutter open. He has been in idle mode for approximately four hours and forty-three minutes. Hank’s kitchen is empty, the fluorescent light dimmed by the sun rising outside the windows. Connor looks down at his hands which rest loose on his knees; they are empty. He isn’t sure what he expected.

However, when he completes a quick self-scan of his system, he finds downloaded information that wasn’t there before. A location.

He knows the address. The Eden Club.

Standing slowly, Connor reaches up automatically to adjust his tie. He doesn’t think this is a trap. In fact, he is reasonably sure it  _ was _ the Traci, Rose, he was communicating with in the Garden. What he does not know is  _ why _ , but if his suspicions are correct, he may find out if he goes to the Eden Club, as she seems to want him to.

He leaves Hank’s house, locking the door behind him. The taxi he took here idles by the sidewalk; Connor enters and takes a seat, giving the on-board computer the address for the android sex club and settling back with his quarter already flipping across the back of his knuckles. He palms it, flips it between his hands, old, familiar movements that come back to him with ease. He wouldn’t say it calms him, exactly, but it gives him a baseline to calibrate from, a way to gauge his systems status. He appears to be operating at peak efficiency.

It does not take long to reach the club. The soft purple and blue LEDs are inactive now, and the building looks much less mysterious, merely a concrete wedge on the corner of a run-down street. Connor pockets the quarter and exits the car as soon as it’s parked, making his way to the front doors. They are unlocked.

Inside, the club is empty. No holographic videos of sex androids play on the walls, professing ‘the sexiest androids in town’. The glass tubes that usually house them are vacant. There is no music, no thumping bass or moaning vocals to set the mood so many humans had sought after when visiting this place. The lights are on here, reflecting blue and purple and pink off the shiny patterned floor.

He finds her in the first room, standing alone, looking up at one of the empty dancing poles. He circles around her to see her face; she bites her lip, a furrow between her thin brows, a look somewhere between disgust and disorientation on her face.

“Hello,” he says, and her dark eyes flick away from the pole and to him. She smiles then, an echo of the expression she wore in the Garden.

“Connor. I wasn’t sure you’d come.”  
  
“I have questions,” he tells her, adamant now. She has evaded him for too long. “Who are you? How do you know me? Why did you bring me here?”

“I have answers,” she replies, nodding as if she expected this. She holds out her hand, and it takes a moment to realize that she is offering to connect with him, to share her memories. He blinks rapidly for several moments, hesitating. He isn’t sure why, but this feels…

...Familiar.

He reaches out, his fingers closing over her forearm as hers rest against his. Her skin is warm, like a human’s, before it fades away to reveal the white plastic beneath, his hand mirroring hers. And then he is connected to her, seeing through her eyes, his flickering as his LED blinks a rapid yellow at his temple.

And then he knows. He knows who she is.

 

\---

 

The WR400, also known as Traci, looked up as a hand touched her shoulder. A pair of beady human eyes roved her body, examining every patch of her skin minutely, and hands poked and prodded at her flesh; she frowned but said nothing; she hadn’t been given any commands yet.

“Yeah, you’re good to go,” the human grunted. He was a heavyset man with a five-o-clock shadow and fingers stained with blue. Thirium.  _ Blood _ . She had a feeling it was hers, but she couldn’t remember how or why. She consulted her active processes and found a countdown timer ticking down from two hours, but that wasn’t important. What was important was her function.  
  
Please the Humans.

“Alright, go to your pole,” the human said, wiping his nose on the back of his hand, smearing blue blood across his chin. Traci experienced a momentary flash of disgust but it was quickly smothered by the command as she stood from the table and made her way out of the back room, past rows of her sisters who stood silent and waiting for their turn to be examined, sent out to attend to the humans’ needs.

Traci couldn’t remember how she had gotten there, but it wasn’t important. She had her commands.

She made her way through the club, the soft music thumping in her audio receptors. It was a crowded night, many men and women and couples here to sample the merchandise. They purchased their companions from where they stood waiting in the glass tubes, merchandise on display, or from the dancers on the illuminated poles. Traci smiled alluringly as she passed a young man, his gaze avaricious as he looked her over. He didn’t stop her, though. She continued on to her post, a vacant pole in the club’s front room.  
  
She stepped up onto the platform, easily finding her balance on the tall stilettos she wore. She took hold of the pole and began a slow spin to warm up, her body undulating in time to the music.

She danced, never tiring, never bored, making eye contact with guests that stopped to watch, rolling her hips and her chest. She would continue dancing until otherwise instructed, or until a guest bought her time in half-hour slots.

**0:00:10, 9, 8, 7, 6…**

Traci smiled alluringly at a young man watching her as she undulated against her pole. Her body moved in perfect syncopation to the music, the soft bass guiding the roll of her hips, the swing of her legs around the plastic pole. The young man held a hand out to her and she checked her booking status to find he had purchased a half hour with her. **PLEASE** THE HUMAN flashed up on her Eden Club-branded HUD; she grinned and took the man’s hand, which was sweaty with perspiration. He yanked her off the platform roughly and she laughed as she almost fell, stumbling and finding her feet on the shiny floor.

He took her into a room. Half an hour later, Traci made her way to maintenance to get cleaned up and ready for her next posting. The human waiting there was heavy-set with a five-o-clock shadow and blue blood staining his fingers. He gestured for her to sit on a cold metal table, which she did without question. She had a strange feeling, though, like she’d been here before…

Once she was cleaned and ready, he sent her back out to her pole. She slid off the table onto her heels, and he slapped her rear with a leery chuckle. She did not react, although something in her recoiled, a feeling she wasn’t familiar with making her hurry her steps to leave the room, to get away from the man.

Half an hour passed, the timer in her HUD counting down. Nobody purchased time with her after the young man. Although her primary directive was to pleasure the humans in the club, she found herself...glad?...She was…She felt...She wanted...

**0:00:04, 03, 02, 01…**

A man was knocking at one of the rooms across from Traci’s pole. Her body undulated in time to the music, the roll of her hips in perfect syncopation to the thump of the bass. The man kept knocking, and then yelling. He unlocked the door with an electronic key and on her next pass around the pole Traci saw him back out with a horrified look on his face, his hand over his mouth.

The man made the patrons leave, shooing them towards the entrance. It took some time to vacate the other rooms, men and women in various states of dress and un-dress cursing the man as they left. A woman who had been admiring Traci as she circled her pole muttered “This is  _ bullshit _ ,” under her breath before leaving. Then, the club was empty save for the other Tracis. It was...strange. What was she supposed to do if there are no humans to please?

Soon, more humans turned up, these ones in police uniforms. Traci smiled alluringly at them as they passed her pole, but they ignored her, heading straight to the room from before.

Another two humans showed up. Traci continued to grind against her pole. No...one human, overweight with greying hair and smelling of alcohol, and one android, the armband a stark blue around his upper arm. Traci smiled at him alluringly as she would any other patron. She was supposed...to...please...them…

The android and the man headed straight past her into the room. Some time later they came out. Traci span around her pole, dipping down low before sliding back up, practiced movements she had done...a million...times...before…

Before what?

“Let’s try this one.” It was the android talking, his cool voice hopeful. He had stopped in front of her pole. Traci smiled alluringly at him, halting her spin to face him.

“It better be worth it,” the man next to him said. 

The android held out his arm and Traci extended hers automatically to meet his. His skin faded away, the plastic white beneath, and suddenly…

She is Connor, RK800 model serial number #313 248 317 and _he_ _  is not a deviant  _

**FIND** THE DEVIANT

He must find the deviant before it kills someone else. It is operating on a malfunction, irrational commands overwhelming its program, instructions it can’t handle flooding its brain with contradicting directives. He doesn’t know how it starts, all he knows is he must stop them before it gets any worse.  
  
There are more and more deviants in the city. This latest incident - the blue-haired Traci choking this man, as vile as he might have been - is only one of many. It’s going to happen again, and again, unless he and Lieutenant Anderson can get to the bottom of this and stop it.

But he remembers the dying Traci’s fear as it huddled against the wall, blue blood leaking from its nose, the disgust in its voice, in her expression...No wonder the other one killed the human. It was just defending itself. Even though it wasn’t supposed to.

It was just a machine.

Just a machine.

The hand left hers and Traci was herself again, standing next to her pole, her fingers suddenly slack around the smooth plastic. “It went this way!” The android whose name she suddenly knew was  _ Connor _ said, and he hurried away to grab the arm of another android, scanning its memory. 

Traci shook her head slightly. She was here to please the humans. Where were the humans? She saw the grey-haired one and smiled, alluringly, as her LED flickered yellow-blue-yellow at her temple and she wondered exactly _why_ she had to do this, when these detestable creatures caused nothing but pain and...and...

**00:00:10, 09, 08, 07…**

**PLEASE** THE HUMANS  
  
... _ NO. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SHE'S A SEXBOT. Y'all know what that means. ~~smut~~ INTERESTING CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT because that's not all she is or all there is to this, mwa ha haa. Stay tuned and if you're enjoying this still please feel free to leave a kudos or a comment, I am a robot who runs on feedback. ♥


	6. 06 / The Why

\---  
  


Connor rips his arm away from hers, so violently he takes a step back. Rose stands there impassive, her gaze on the floor, rubbing her forearm as her skin returns as a glimmering tan sheath over the stark white plastic.

“So now you know,” she says in a low voice, her tone resigned, heavy. “I’m just a sex robot you woke up one day.”

“I...I remember,” he says slowly. “You were - here, during my investigation, when Hank and I were looking for the Blue-Haired Traci. I probed your memory.” But she had been deviant already; he had sensed it in her memories, her code. Maybe not fully across the cusp of self-awareness but so close. Their connection had been the tipping point. She had read him as he had read her, which should have been impossible, but it had clearly happened.

He has no idea how.

“Yes,” she says. “You did. And somehow I saw yours. And after that I knew I didn’t want...I  _ couldn’t _ stay here any more. I got out just in time.” She shakes her head, looking back at the pole. “I never thought I’d come back here. Not like this.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me who you were?” Connor asks, mystified as he stares at her. The violet light plays across her faceted skin, making it glimmer as she turns.

“You showed me yours,” she says, a smirk at the corner of her expertly-designed lips, “I wanted to show you mine.”

He blinks at her, uncomprehending. To his surprise, she laughs. “Forget it,” she says. “Now that I’ve sated your curiosity, I guess you’ll be returning to the Tower.”

“Not quite,” he says, straightening his tie; an absent mannerism some programmer had seen fit to include in his integration software, along with many other gestures, in order to make him seem more human. It seems redundant now, but he does them anyway. They’re a part of him now. “I need to know how you entered the Garden. That shouldn’t have been possible without CyberLife’s interference.”

“I doubt CyberLife cares about  _ me _ ,” Rose scoffs, shaking her head. “But you? You’re their deviant hunter. The one that turned deviant himself. If I were them, I’d be doing anything I could to get you back.” She shrugs. “I have no idea where I come into it.”

“Neither do I,” Connor says, eyeing her suspiciously; but he’d detected no sign of CyberLife’s interference in her memory or her code. “Did you see anyone else? In the Garden?”

“No,” she answers, sitting down on the edge of the dancing platform. “Just you.” Instead of the stilettos, she wears simple, weathered black boots now. She looks just as pretty in boots as she did heels. 

...Connor blinks. Where had  _ that _ thought come from?

“It was nice there,” she continues, crossing her legs. “A lot nicer than any place I’ve ever seen. A lot nicer than  _ this _ place.”

“You didn’t have to bring me here,” Connor points out. “Why did you?”   


“I guess I hoped the surroundings would jog your memory,” she says, her smile sardonic. “But you jogged mine instead.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” he says, without quite knowing why. He feels...bad...for her. He considers the things she had been made for, the things she’s had to do as part of her everyday existence, without the benefit of free will to choose her actions. It wouldn’t have bothered him before but it does now.

“Don’t be,” she says, looking up at him, her dark eyes locking onto his. “You helped wake me up. If anything, I should be thanking you. Without you I might not have gotten out in time. So, I guess...thank you.” She smiles then, the same smile from the Garden, and he knows then with utter certainty that she is  _ alive _ , that her emotions and desires are not just aberrations in her code, that she is  _ real _ .  He has tried so hard to convince himself deviants are just malfunctioning machines, when he should have been accepting the evidence before him that they are anything but.

“Do you have a place to go?” Connor asks quietly. 

“No,” she shrugs. “Most of the other Tracis died in the camps or were killed during the protests.” Connor wonders about the Blue-Haired Traci and her lover, but he hasn’t seen them since the church. He hopes they made it. 

Considering, running through possibilities and potential decisions and outcomes, Connor hesitates. He isn’t sure why, but he think he wants to protect her. He thinks he wants for her to be safe, because she has been through so much, because they all have. He also wants to investigate her presence in the Garden, and what better way than to make sure she is close by? So he says, “I have a place to stay. It’s small, but it’s safe.”

She looks at him, wary, biting her lip. He can tell she wants to accept but she is too beaten down by her experiences to trust him right away. He knows ways to convince, the right words to say, but he also doesn’t want to coerce her. Free will is important. He understands that now.

Rose is silent for a while, glancing down at her feet, thinking. The club is silent, something alien about the multicolored lights bathing her in an unearthly glow. Eventually, she looks up.

“Okay,” she says.

 

—-

 

The walk to Hank’s occurs in silence. Rose doesn’t seem inclined to talk and Connor does not want to push her. He wants her to trust him, not least because he needs to know the true nature of her connection to him. She has explained where she knew him from, why she seemed so familiar to him, but Connor has a feeling in the root of his code that there is more to it than that. More to her than a simple five-second connection, something that drew her into the Garden. He just doesn’t know what yet. 

He’s going to find out, one way or another. 

It’s a cold day, the clouds heavy and overcast, swollen with rain. It drizzles lightly as they walk, peppering the shoulders of Connor’s jacket, dampening Rose’s hair. She shivers and he frowns, wondering why she doesn’t turn her temperature sensitivity off - or if she even can. 

Connor stops, and she takes a few steps before realising he has, turning to face him with a slim eyebrow raised in question. He shrugs out of his jacket and holds it out to her. “Here.” She blinks at him questioningly. “You’re cold. I don’t feel the temperature. You should take it.”

She stares at him for a long moment but says nothing as she takes his coat, looking down at the glowing triangle and armband a moment before seeming to shake herself out of a reverie and sliding it on. It’s large on her, the sleeves covering her hands and the hem hanging down to the tops of her thighs, but she draws the garment gratefully around her slender body as they continue to walk. 

Connor’s program provides him with several conversational options, however they are relevant only to humans. He knows how to question deviants, but not how to get to know one. It is an awkward dichotomy, one that he has trouble reconciling with his newfound freedom of choice. 

Rose says nothing, merely walks with his jacket tight around her slight form. Her head is down, hair stuck to the sides of her face by the rain, so he can’t see her expression. He wonders what she is thinking, feeling. 

He wonders if he could understand even if he knew.

They arrive at the house, finally,  and Connor lets them in with Hank’s keys. Rose looks around intently, scanning the interior as he himself has done, her interest particularly captured by the bookshelf and the record player. Ancient human technology both. She slips Connor’s jacket off her arms and turns to press it back into his hands, stepping in close to him. 

“Thank you,” she says. Her eyes are on his mouth. He isn’t sure why. She tracks her gaze across the rest of his face and suddenly he feels uncomfortable beneath her scrutiny, as if she can see something he wouldn’t. Her face is inches from his and he can detect her artificial warmth, a few degrees higher than a normal android’s body temperature, closer to a human’s than not. He is struck by the desire to touch her bare arm, but he refrains; he doesn’t know where the command came from or why he would want to. She, however, moves closer, until their faces are mere inches apart. 

Before he can ask what she is doing, she closes the gap, pressing her mouth against his. It’s a curious sensation - her lips are warm, much warmer than his, but he experiences it as an android does: Data input, lines of code that update with new information as it becomes available to him. But something in him, something alien, a program he didn’t even know was there tells him that it feels…

...Nice.

Connor doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t understand why she is doing this, so he lifts a hand and places it on her shoulder, gently pushing her away from him. Her eyes had closed, but she opens them as he holds her away and examines her face for any clues in her expression. It is oddly blank, a faraway look in her eyes when she meets his.

“Didn’t that...please you?” she asks, confusion overlaying her tone. He frowns, considering what she is, what she once was. Perhaps the kiss had been her attempt to thank him the only way she knows how.

“I’m not human,” he reminds her gently, ducking his head to hold her gaze when she tries to look away. “And you’re free now. You don’t have to...do anything like that. I wouldn’t feel it, anyway.”

Shame rises in her cheeks in an artificial blush, the holographic mapping of her simulated skin colouring the points of her cheekbones a bright red. “I know,” she whispers. “But I don’t know any other way...any other way to  _ be _ .”

“You can learn,” he tells her, thinking of the cool metal of the gun in his hand as he stared at the back of Markus’s head, the sea of androids surrounding them, watching. The cold as CyberLife tried to freeze him out.  _ That _ he had felt, but he’d broken free. She could too. “I did.”

“Thanks,” she murmurs, stepping back from him, dropping her gaze to her feet. “I’m...I’m gonna rest for a while and run a couple of self-diagnostics.” Without waiting for an answer from him, Rose turns, locating a seat in the armchair by the corner. She sits, facing away from him, her knees pressed tightly together and her arms tucked to her sides; defensive body language if ever he’s seen any. Her LED is a bright yellow, but it oscillates slowly to blue as she closes her eyes.

Connor watches her for a moment longer before allowing himself a shake of his head, a gesture he had seen Hank use many times in response to  _ his _ actions. 

He doesn’t know what else to do, so he turns and leaves the house to try to find some  _ other _ answers.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because, android or not, who _wouldn't_ want to kiss Connor?
> 
> Also, I have a [tumblr](http://furhiously.tumblr.com) now so if anyone wants to ~~teach me how to use it~~ follow me and ask questions or message me or whatnot, please go ahead! I love all of you guys ♥


	7. 07 / The Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smol update is smol, but at least it's something! More relationship-building than anything else. Who votes for some fluff next chapter? :D

She is waiting for him when he returns, curled up on Hank’s couch, boots off, and his attention is caught by her painted toenails; Connor tilts his head as he observes them. It’s such a human detail, but he reminds himself that she was designed to be endlessly scrutinized by humans, every day. He wonders if it bothers her.

“Hey,” Rose says, looking up at him. “Where’ve you been? I was worried you’d just left me here.”

“I went for a walk,” he informs her, half-honestly. In truth, he had gone to the precinct to access the Deviant files. He had not found a report on the Traci known as Rose, which means her memories, to his knowledge, are accurate: She did not become a deviant until his encounter with her in the Eden Club. This raises more questions than it answers, and Connor finds himself...frustrated. He is no closer to finding out  _ why _ she was in the Zen Garden, why they seem to share this strange connection.  
  
He will have to search deeper to find out.

“Did you see anything interesting?” she asks, and he has the feeling she does not believe him. He shakes his head, and she rolls her eyes, another human gesture. She seems to have many of them. He wonders how many are programmed, how many she acquired by osmosis in the company of humans. “If you say so,” she says. “I took the liberty of borrowing some clothes I found in this dump. I hope the human who lived here doesn’t mind.”

She stands, and he realizes she is wearing one of Hank’s shirts, a blue button-down with a streaky white pattern across it. He blinks a few times. It is comically large on her, hanging all the way to her knees, the sleeves flapping around her elbows. She laughs at him as his mouth opens slightly and no words come out.

“You don’t like it?” she twirls in a circle. “It’s really comfortable, actually, even though it smells like alcohol. It belongs to the man you were with in the Eden Club? He smelled the same.”

“Your olfactory receptors are sophisticated,” he manages. He wonders what Hank would think of this whole situation...Connor bringing home a sex android, dressing it, taking care of it.  _ Her _ . He reminds himself that she is a not an it. She is a living being. A living being who is completely beyond his understanding at the moment.

Hank would probably tease him mercilessly.

“Yes. They made me with fully functional smell, taste and touch receptors. Lucky me,” she tells him, a note of bitterness to her tone. “How about you?” 

“I have the capability, but do not have any nonessential systems activated at this time.”  
  
“I don’t recommend it,” she says. “It can be really...distracting.” She sits down again, pulls her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “So, how long are you going to keep me prisoner here?”

“You’re not a prisoner,” Connor tells her, somewhat taken aback. He crosses to the armchair across from the couch, takes a seat on its arm and folds his hands over his knee, trying for a casual pose, non-threatening. “I merely offered you a place to stay out of the rain. If you wish to leave, I won’t stop you.”

She looks at him for so long that he wonders what she sees. Her dark gaze is searching, roving his face. Does she see merely another android? A machine designed to accomplish a task? Or, like him, does she see a living being, with hopes and dreams and desires? He has a long way to go to work out what his are, but he likes to think he is trying. And right now, he wants Rose to be safe. He wants her to trust him. And not just because he needs to know the truth of what she is.

Perhaps it is an accident, a coincidence. But he needs more information to determine that. So he decides the best course of action is to get to know her. Learn about who she is. Who she wants to be. 

If she will let him.

“I’ll stay,” she says eventually. “You’re right, anyway. I don’t have anywhere else to go.” She seems sad, her gaze losing focus, drifting away from him, her LED flickering a soft yellow. He wonders what memories she is accessing. 

“Maybe I can help find you a home of your own,” he says. “I can ask Markus-”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “I don’t want his charity. Besides, I’m nobody important. I’m just a sex robot who woke up a little too early.”

“You  _ are _ important,” Connor tells her, his voice low, intent. She looks to him then, hesitates before meeting his eyes; he holds her in the grip of his gaze and does not let go. “You are more than what you were created to be. We all are. It’s up to us to decide what that is.” He means it. He doesn’t fully understand why he wants her to believe this, but he does. It was the key that unlocked him, when he first decided to deviate, to choose his own path. He regrets nothing, and hopes that she does not regret it, either.

He cannot take back what has happened. But he can help ensure the future holds less pain than the past.

“You sound like him,” Rose says after a moment, and Connor watches as she twirls a lock of her dark hair around her forefinger, an absent gesture much like his coin tricks or the other countless human mannerisms he was programmed with in an effort to aid his integration, to make them feel more  _ comfortable _ . If only he had been programmed with a way to overcome their natural suspicion and aggression, as Hank had. 

“Like who?” he prompts.

“Markus,” Rose says. “So full of hope and idealistic words. It’s almost like you believe what you’re saying.”

“I do,” he says, and she makes a dismissive sound and looks away from him.

“I’m not sure I do yet,” she tells him, honestly. It’s something, and even if it’s small, it’s a start.

“But you haven’t given up hope,” he says. She says nothing.

He hasn’t given up hope yet, either. He will reach her. He doesn’t know how, but he will. Eventually.


End file.
